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Well, we might not know if City are clear contenders, but I think it's safe to say that Spurs are complete pretenders ...

I don't know. City did this to Man U two years ago and then Man U stayed strong. I will agree that they aren't going to win the league, but that seemed very far fetched before this game anyways.

Tottenham is a team of a lot of individually good players. Their midfield has a pretty terrible record of both scoring goals, which has been noted, but it also seems like they have a terrible record of assisting goals (note that I didn't check the numbers, so I may be wrong).

I think Spivey is onto it. Spurs brought in a lot of players this summer, I think we should not be too surprised that they are taking time to gel. With the talent if the players it wouldn't surprise me if they got really hot at some point.

To me, Yaya Toure is the best player in the World. You can't get the ball off him, and you can't get past him with the ball. He covers the entire field, and his feet are good enough to find passes with little or no space.

Spivey - Navas has struggled to make an impact this season, beyond this match and the season opener. It's also been tough for him to get in the side. If Mancini was managing, he might likely be one of the 3 behind the lone striker, but in Pellegrini's 4-4-2 he has to compete with Silva and Nasri to start. Silva is City's best creator, and Nasri has been in excellent form all season.

Looks like AVB is taking a lot of flak in the press from Cox and others. I don't want to pile on the guy, but I thought he had learned from his experience at Chelsea. Evidently not.

I watched the game on DVR this afternoon and Dawson lumbering around in that high line was giving me Terry flashbacks. Lloris has been brilliant playing sweeper keeper (in my opinion he is probably the best sweeper keeper in the world although there are one or two other keepers I would rather have overall) but playing a game on the road against City with a high line and Dawson, Kaboul, and Vertoghen? Yikes. It just seems like he wants to play like he wants to play.

Too early yet though. I still expect them to be there at the end but playing in the artic circle isn't going to help. I'd probably send an assistant, the water boys, the physio, and a janitor to wear the kits and hope nobody notices.

I've been afraid to go on the internet for the last 24 hours or so. My god, that was awful. And to make matters worse, it was the first time I've come away from a game with serious concerns about the coaching staff.

The same old problems in attack continue to be unresolved. Little to no movement ahead of the ball, and on the rare occasion someone does make a clever run the man on the ball is either too slow to react or simply doesn't spot it at all. Spurs seem to have far too many technically gifted players who, for whatever reason, just don't make decisions quickly enough.

Yesterday, they coupled the persistent "stand around and wait for somebody to do something" attack with some good old fashioned calamitous defending. I cannot even begin to express how ill-suited Michael Dawson is for these sorts of games where Spurs are up against quick, nippy forwards. Presumably the club bought Chiriches for precisely this type of match-up?

The most frustrating thing was that, freakish opening goal aside, for the first 20-odd minutes or so you could see exactly how the AVB game plan was supposed to work. The tempo was high. The defense was living dangerously but generally holding their own against the City attack. Paulinho and Sandro were bossing the midfield and moving the ball on quickly to the outlet players.

Who then failed to do anything useful with it. And then the defense finally came unstuck. The end.

At that point, I think AVB has to recognize that his possession-based attack once again isn't getting it done. Spurs had plenty of pace on the park to play a more counter-attacking game, and a couple of their only highlights came on breaks. But it was just more of the same, continuing to try to bull their way through City's defense and getting picked off on the counter, followed by a switch to 4-4-2 which only exacerbated the problem.

Monsieur Courtois? A Russian gentleman is here with a large bag of money. He says it's now yours. I kid of course, but that was bad, real bad (although it didn't help Zenit much).

As for viewing for the 14:45 games, Basel v. Chelsea on FS1??? Really? Ajax/Barca is dumb for Fox, but that neither have Dortmund/Napoli is preposterous. As for me, it looks like I'll go with the whiparound, if I can ever get a certain website to load.

More important than any possible CL development is that Wolves has scored against Tranmere at Molineux. League One doesn't have an official song and Heineken commercial, however. At least not one I know about.

Wait Wolves already dropped to League One already? I thought they were in the Championship?

Fox really has an English League bias. Out of FS1, FS2, FSP, Fox Deportes and the regional Fox Sports channel, none is showing Napoli-Dortmund. Granted I only get FS1, the regional sports channel and Deportes, but the programming exec needs to get his head out of his butt.

This "get back at Ancelloti by losing to Ajax" is Barcelona's droll sense of humor at its finest. It would make for an interesting last night fixture, Ajax going to the San Siro for what must be Allegri's job (if it's not already gone). Which would end up helping Ancelloti get back to Milan, where he belongs. That Barca humor is highly developed.

Much as I hate the way Spurs have played this year, I think it would be foolish to not give AVB at least a year with all of the new players before judging him. I guess I would feel differently if there's a locker room revolt or if some amazing manager becomes available and wants the Spurs job.

Firing AVB is not going to fix anything; I hope they come to their senses and realize that.

The Defoe thing is just weird... So you want to have just two strikers? Didn't I just watch this show last year?

I don't pretend to know what the optimal XI would be for Spurs, but I do hope they give him the year to figure it out. If he doesn't and they finish outside the top 5, well, OK then, move on... But they better have a better plan in place than to simply cycle in a retread and hope for the best.

526--these pieces read so weirdly to the US eye: how is one supposed to judge how well sourced it is? "The board has not enjoyed....The criticism from the dressing room is......"--these phrases are conventionally understood to indicate direct conversations with members of the groups in question?

Not necessarily direct conversations, but at the same time generally not more than once removed, with agents being the most common source as to what the"dressing room" is thinking. It really isn't that different than the US use of "sources".

Would Spurs have been better off tabling some of the $ from Bale and spending it next summer, instead of getting all the players at once/spending it all this past summer? If "bedding in" is indeed the problem, it would seem perhaps fewer new players in the mix for playing time might help... But then would Spurs fans/the press have accused them of banking the money and turning into Arsenal?

I just want to know there's a plan. I can put up with off-years and down cycles if I know there's a working plan in place/a philosophy of where they want to take the club. What I really don't want to see (of any team I root for) is lurching about, moving from problem to problem with a "win now!" attitude instead of having a plan in place to build long-term success.

I realize this likely puts me out of the mainstream when it comes to English football... Or at least I perceive that it does.

Would Spurs have been better off tabling some of the $ from Bale and spending it next summer, instead of getting all the players at once/spending it all this past summer?

I don't see anything wrong with the strategy, they just may (stress may, it's still very early and they're not very far off the pace) have bought the wrong players. Lamela and Soldado currently look like huge busts relative to their transfer fees, but these are guys with track records elsewhere who could turn it on at any minute.

Would Spurs have been better off tabling some of the $ from Bale and spending it next summer, instead of getting all the players at once/spending it all this past summer? If "bedding in" is indeed the problem, it would seem perhaps fewer new players in the mix for playing time might help... But then would Spurs fans/the press have accused them of banking the money and turning into Arsenal?

I think the bigger mistake will be firing AVB (assuming he's the right manager). I don't think it should be especially shocking that it's taking some time for such a revamped team to come together particularly when the primary, secondary and tertiary options were one guy and that guy was sold to Real Madrid. I won't be at all surprised if there comes a point where they just "click" and get on a terrific hot streak.

This assumes that AVB is the right guy to pull them together. I won't pretend to be able to answer that but he seems tactically astute and my sense is that he is well liked by the players.

Last season through 12 games they were on 17 points so they are in fact ahead of that pace (they are on 20 right now). Looking at it fixture by fixture (the right method in my opinion) they are 2 points ahead of last year's pace (interchanging promoted/relegated teams) so I don't think there is much cause to feel like they are regressing. The problem right now is that things are much more congested at the top but I think selling Bale and bringing in so many new players should have been expected to produce an uneven start;

at Palace no change (using Reading in place of Palace)
vs. Swansea no change
at Arsenal no change
vs. Norwich +2
at Cardiff +2 (using Wigan)
vs. Chelsea +1
vs. West Ham -3
at Villa no change
vs. Hull no change (using QPR)
at Everton +3
vs. Newcastle -3
at City no change

Where do clubs usually rank as priorities the two cups and Europe? It's my 3rd year in the Premier League with Wrexham. We're in the Europa league, and into the first knockout round. We just made the League Cup final, and ready to also play our first game in the FA Cup. The League Cup final is sandwiched by the home and away with Schalke in the first knockout round. I'm assuming the Cup final should be the bigger priority over Europa, but figured I'd ask.

534 - I agree with what you are saying - and wonder if there is any way to at least ballpark quantifying the "bedding in" aspect when a top team like Spurs makes so many changes from the end of the prior season.

One minor correction that I know as an Everton fan - Spurs lost at Everton last year and drew 0-0 there this year - so that should be a +1 instead of +3 there.

Would Spurs have been better off tabling some of the $ from Bale and spending it next summer, instead of getting all the players at once/spending it all this past summer?

In addition to salary demands, teams need to make Champions League for player recruitment purposes and to keep star players. Players like Sandro, Lloris and Vertonghen would be happier to see all that Bale money spent on players rather than 50M sitting in the bank for the next summer. Having one settling period by getting the players at once is better than having two settling periods, not to mention whether or not Spurs would be able to get the same or similar players next summer. Plus I think player prices are going to continue to go up.

I can't see Levy losing faith in AVB this quickly, and it would be sheer madness to dismiss him at this point. The only two THFC managers with a better winning percentage than AVB were at the club in 1898–1899 and 1942–1946.

Lamela and Soldado currently look like huge busts relative to their transfer fees

But did you not see Soldado's movement to and from the center circle on Sunday? Utterly brilliant, that.

Isn't Toronto FC also heavily rumored to be paying a decent sum of money to Genoa for Gilardino? Are they actually gonna spring for both AG and Defoe?

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Sosa -- I didn't have much time to comment on the derby. I'll just say that Dowd quite obviously got the one big call of the game horribly wrong, but otherwise that was an incredibly entertaining game. What did you not like about Flanagan's performance? I thought he was perfectly cromulent, although I'm not confident I can accurately judge things like positioning in a game like that.

Lamela and Soldado currently look like huge busts relative to their transfer fees

Weren't also those two consolation prizes for Tottenham? They were going for David Villa (and probably flirted a lot with Benteke) before they had to turn to Soldado. I'm less certain about Lamela, but wasn't Willian the one they were after?

AVB played a 4-3-3 at Porto. Is the plan to do something similar at Tottenham with Lamela in something like Hulk's role (and Soldado poaching like Falcao)? I realize I'm the only one left on the Lamela bandwagon at this point, and also admit I've been finding other things to watch most often when Spurs are playing.

Also, is Townsend on the right team in terms of AVB's technical predilections?

Would Spurs have been better off tabling some of the $ from Bale and spending it next summer, instead of getting all the players at once/spending it all this past summer?

They did table some of the Bale money. Spurs were on track for a net spend around £30m before the Bale sale got real later in the window. (That's about equal to the increase in the TV contract.) So they have held onto tens of millions of pounds in profit / future investment.

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The only comparison I can find in my database for Spurs' crazy shot on target conversion rate (adjusted for location and shot/pass type) is Dalglish's Liverpool. From about the 7th to the 18th week of the 2011-2012 season, they underperformed expected goals by a little over 12, actually slightly more than Spurs in the first 12 weeks of this season. Liverpool were about five goals below expectations in their other 26 games, so they didn't significantly underperform xG outside of that one terrible stretch. But they were pretty mediocre in attack outside of that terrible stretch, scoring 30 goals (excluding penalties and own goals) in 26 matches. Don't really know what conclusions to draw there, but it's super odd.

Also, it's kind of funny, Spurs had been overperforming xGA by a small but real amount all season, with opposing clubs generally just not shooting that well. (Lloris is not a great shot-stopper, it hasn't been so much about that.) Then City scored five on shooting numbers that would project about three, which brought Spurs' xGA back into line with their GA. Regression to the mean! Just the wrong kind.

On Lamela/Soldado, I'm currently worried about Soldado and whether he's just not quite athletic enough to play at the top level. (Or if he's lost an important tick of speed, he is a little past peak age now.) I'm not giving up on him, but I'm worried. Lamela I'm really not worried yet at all. He's been improving in Europa matches, and his athleticism and skill on the ball are obvious, he just needs consistency and better communication with his teammates.

Soldado's age is an issue, but I think the problem there is lack of service. He's just not getting opportunities. That may be a matter of fitting into the system, but to me it's a problem in the Spurs' midfield -- they're too eager to keep possession and not eager enough to look for an incisive pass.